The Internet has grown tremendously in recent years, both in terms of number of users and the amount of data transferred through the Internet. Originally, the Internet was a data transfer medium for academia. Eventually, engineers and private users increasingly used and became more familiar with the Internet. More and more, the Internet is becoming an acceptable communication medium for business. However, business users demand more confidentiality and traceability of communication than do private users engaging in personal correspondence. In addition, business organizations have a strong interest in protecting confidential material and ensuring secrecy and propriety of communications of employees.
Business users often communicate sensitive, confidential, and proprietary information and, accordingly, expect such communication to be secure from unauthorized eavesdropping. In addition, business users expect to be able to store records tracing correspondence. Accordingly, to provide a medium for business communication, Internet-based communication must be made secure and traceable. In addition, inappropriate use by employees of employer-supplied communications through the Internet can harm the employer in a number of ways. For example, employees can breach the employer's security through unauthorized disclosure of confidential documents. In addition, employees can abuse such employer-supplied communication for personal benefit resulting in excessive use of costly resources. Furthermore, communications of an inappropriate nature, e.g., sexually explicit materials, or communications containing malicious computer instructions can potentially result in legal liability of the employer.
What is needed is a secure, traceable data file delivery system in which policies of an organization can be enforced against members of the organization as senders of such data files.